Fading
by Blasted Head
Summary: Happy times always go fast. Even immortals die.
_Proposal_

It was simple. They were on the bridge alone, with Yama at the helm and Harlock standing behind the younger male, close enough for the male to feel his hot breath on his head. Yama tried his best not to lean back against the Captain. He was learning from him, not dating with him then.

'I can't control the ship!' Yama bit his lips. Always, he always had a problem, unlike Harlock, who had more than a hundred years' of experience. 'How can you control your ship that steadily immediately?'

Harlock sighed and closed his eye. 'You must learn how to see something invisible, Yama,' his hands reached out and he put them on Yama's. To do that, Harlock needed to stand closer, so now basically there were no gaps between the two male, the older's nose buried in the other's hair. 'Close your eye.'

The co-Captain was afraid that he would fall asleep right there, with a heart beating strongly next to his, but he obeyed. He felt something passing through his head, giving him directions. When he was hesitating whether he should follow it or not, Harlock helped him, his gloved hands guiding the smaller ones. Hell, that was wonderful.

'Trust yourself,' Harlock's voice was nearer than before, snapping Yama hack to reality, just to find out the former's cheek was on the latter's. The mere move sent electric shocks through Yama's veins.

'H…Harlock?' the young male asked. Normally it was he who acted like that.

No answer came out, so Yama decided to open his eye. Right after he had done so, his lips met Harlock's. _Ah hell…_ Yama had been avoiding it, and now Harlock had ruined everything. It was impossible to reject, given the fact that the older man's arms were locked around the other's shoulder, so Yama had no choice but to kiss Harlock as passionately. Yama pulled away when his brain was yelling for oxygen.

'What do you want?' he tried to sound angry, but his gaze betrayed him.

Harlock opened his eyes. 'I want you to marry me.'

Yama went wide-eyed, but for some reason, a faint 'yes' slipped from his lips, and Harlock closed their distance for another share.

* * *

 _Nightmare_

The happiness did not last long. About a month and a half after that, Harlock started to change. Sometimes when he was teaching Yama sword fighting, his gravity sabre dropped from his hand even he was gripping it tight. Sometimes Yama could see what was behind Harlock. Sometimes when they were preparing for battle, with crewmen running in the corridors, Harlock ran pass _through_ them like a ghost. Harlock noticed them all but did not want Yama worry about him, so he went to see Miime secretly in the central computer room.

'Miime…'

'I know,' the alien nodded and tilted her face to a metal tube. He sat down, feeling lucky his body did not pass through it, but at the same time, burying his face in his palms because the bad feeling about the answer he was going to learn.

'You're afraid,' she was more honest than him. He acknowledged by nodding slightly.

'Can it be changed?' he asked, his voice trembling in fear. He had a terrible feeling.

'Do you know how immortals die?' Miime started with a question.

'By fading away.' he looked up, realisation in his eye. He was dying.

'Harlock is _dying_?' Yama's voice rang out from the door.

Miime dissolved into hundreds of fireflies, leaving the two men alone. Harlock stood up, forcing himself to face Yama's sad expression, and he doubted he was any better. Still, he cupped Yama's cheek with his palm, cradling his tearful face. When Harlock started to cry also, Yama simply flung into his arms, and they stood there crying in each other's arms.

* * *

 _Faded_

Harlock went silently. That night, after he and Yama had shared a bottle in the former's quarters, he told the younger man to sleep first, leaving his weapons and gravity cloak behind. Yama managed to kiss Harlock once more before he left. Yama climbed into the big bed, trying his best to stay awake, but sleepiness was taking over him, and eventually he fell asleep. When he woke up, he found the other side of the bed neat, definitely unslept for the whole night. Fear rose in Yama's heart, therefore he quickly got up and checked the life-forms on _Arcadia_. The number had reduced by one. Still refusing to admit the cruel fact, he went to the upper bridge. Kei and Yattaran were there, their expression sober with their eyes filled with unspoken sadness they were trying to hide. There was no sign of Harlock on the bridge, so Yama was forced to accept the reality and take over as the Captain of _Arcadia_.

Sometimes Yama doubted if Harlock was truly dead. At most of his sleepless or nightmare-filled nights, he swore he could feel someone embracing him from his back, his touch no more than a breath against his skin, comforting him until he fell asleep again. Sometimes when a bullet was definitely going to hit him, it whizzed by beside him magically, leaving him unwounded. That was what keeping him sane for a hundred years.

One day, when he was training his successor who was a girl who claimed that she was more than two hundred and knew Harlock, his Cosmo Dragoon slipped from his tight grip and landed on the floor with a loud clang. He immediately knew his time had come. Harlock's spirit had not shown up for ten whole years, and his heart was getting weary. He faded much faster than Harlock, so he told the girl about Harlock and the fact that he was going to meet the same fate. She, being a cold-hearted person after her five-year runaway life, simply nodded and went away. Sighing, he climbed into bed, surprised by the solid touch at his back. He leant into the warmth. It was solid; it was real.

'Is that you, Harlock?' he asked, a smile playing across his lips.

A warm breath on his neck was the answer he received.

* * *

 _Never-ending_

Mayu Oyama sheathed the gravity sabre, put the Cosmo Dragoon, which was made by her father, back into the holster and put on the gravity cloak. These things once belonged to her godfather, Phantom F. Harlock the second. Then their owner was Yama, Harlock's only lover he ever had. Miime had warned her about the fate of the two Captains, but she had a feeling that it would never come to her. Her hard times reshaped her personality into a cold, dark emotionless girl cared about nothing other than her life and her ideals. People thought she had died after running away from her orphanage on Mars at the age of ten, but in fact, she did not. She survived on the street, protecting herself using the skills she had learnt watching Harlock fight. When she was fifteen, she finally gained enough material to make herself a glass container for cryopreservation. She had slept for a long time, a hundred and ninety-two years, woken up by the new Captain of _Arcadia_. Her time spent with Harlock made her the perfect choice of Yama's successor, acknowledged by the a hundred crewmen of the ghost ship.

She went to the central computer room where her father's conscious was saved. She believed in some ways, the two former Captains were there, too. She promised to them that she would take care of _Arcadia_ and bring hope to humanity. She also told them that she was going to fight the best she could.

She swept her cloak behind her, not knowing that the spirits of Harlock and Yama were smiling at her.

They would never stop fighting for freedom.

* * *

 **I don't want to be mean, so I kill them both instead of just killing Harlock.**


End file.
